Tuesday, February 1, 2011

[ZESTCaste] Dalits stage protest in Alwar

 

http://english.samaylive.com/regional-news/rajasthan-news/676481721/dalits-stage-protest-in-alwar.html

01 Feb 2011 12:06:07 AM IST

Dalits stage protest in Alwar

Hundreds of Dalits on Monday staged a demonstration demanding a
judicial probe into what they said ransacking of their houses a few
days ago.

A memorandum seeking an impartial probe into the incident was handed
over to concerned authorities, a Dalit leader said.

The Dalits alleged those who had ransacked their houses in Husainpur
village had the protection of ruling party leaders.

Besides compensation to affected families, they demanded stern action
against police and district officers for their "inaction".

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[ZESTCaste] In wake of transfer of rape case, SC directs Haryana to assess damages

 

http://www.indlawnews.com/Newsdisplay.aspx?cf7252ed-1be1-4abd-a3aa-ea0dbcfce2f4

In wake of transfer of rape case, SC directs Haryana to assess damages

1/31/2011
31.1.2011 (UNI) Taking serious note of the violence indulged in by the
members of dominating Jat community in Haryana following transfer of
the criminal case of Mirchpur village in Hisar district of Haryana
pertaining to violence against dalits, the Supreme Court directed the
railway ministry and state of Haryana to assess the loss of private
and public property during the road blockade.

Members of dominating community in the state blocked the road in order
to prevent the accused people allegedly involved in Mirchpur violence
from the jail in Haryana to Delhi following the transfer of the case
by the Supreme Court to Delhi.

A bench comprising Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly had earlier
transferred the trial of the case to Delhi when the family members of
the victim complained to the Supreme Court that trial is not being
allowed in free and fair manner and the atmosphere of intimidation and
fear is being created in the court room and witnesses are not being
allowed to reach the court and the state police is also not protecting
the prosecution witnesses.

The apex court has indicated that the loss caused to the public and
private property during the road blockade will be recovered from the
miscreants and the state for not taking adequate steps to prevent the
loss to public and private property.

Dalits had fled their homes following attack by the dominant community
after the dalits demanded action against the culprits responsible for
abetting the suicide of a minor dalit girl and her aged father
following torture and harassment by the police.

The girl was allegedly raped by one of the members of the dominant
community. UNI

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[ZESTCaste] 3,000 dalits arrested for entering temple near Madurai

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/3/2011020120110201035859715dd001701/3000-dalits-arrested-for-entering-temple-near-Madurai.html

3,000 dalits arrested for entering temple near Madurai

Gladwin Emmanuel

Posted On Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 03:59:01 AM

In Chennai Nearly 3,000 members of Tamil Nadu's Dalit community were
arrested on Monday as they proceeded towards the Muthalamman temple in
Uthapuram village, near Madurai.


For decades, Dalits haven't been allowed to enter the temple and the
Monday procession was a protest against this practice.

The families were on their way to the temple with offerings comprising
bananas and flowers.

However, sources said, that the Dalits and workers of the CPI(M) -
proceeding towards the temple from neighbouring districts like Madurai
and Virdhunagar were arrested at 14 spots where police picketing were
posted and Dalits were intercepted and arrested by the police.


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[ZESTCaste] SC seeks details of losses due to Mirchpur stir

http://www.hindustantimes.com/SC-seeks-details-of-losses-due-to-Mirchpur-stir/Article1-656927.aspx

SC seeks details of losses due to Mirchpur stir
Bhadra Sinha, Hindustan Times
New Delhi, January 31, 2011


First Published: 23:17 IST(31/1/2011)
Last Updated: 23:21 IST(31/1/2011)

The Supreme Court on Monday slammed the Haryana government for failing
to act against those who disrupted rail and road traffic in protest
against the arrest of 98 members from the upper caste community in the
Mirchpur Dalit killings. A bench comprising Justice GS Singhvi and
Justice AK Ganguly
also took strong exception to the growing incidents of such protests.
It added such protests were nothing but "strong-arm tactics to
browbeat governments."

The court said it would not remain a mute spectator to the show of
muscle at the cost of constitutional principals.

Unless rule of law prevails this court will take drastic steps, the
kind of which was not beeen seen so far. Muscle cannot prevail over
rule of law. We want to know whether members of any particular
community started using strong-arm tactics to browbeat the
government," it said.

It expressed strong displeasure against the members of 12 khap
panchayats who during their 11-day-long protest had blocked road and
rail traffic, thereby causing loss to the state exchequer.

"One group of people, who are having muscles, cannot put people of the
country to ransom. People have a right to transport," the bench said.
It asked the Railways and the Haryana government to assess their
financial losses due to the disruption.

The bench directed the Northern Railway General Manager to instruct
senior officials to file an affidavit quantifying the loss. Haryana
government, too, has been directed to evaluate the loss and file a
similar affidavit. The same has to be done within two weeks.

"In the last few years, we have been witnessing, for 30-40 days trains
are being stopped in Rajasthan. Thousands of passengers were prevented
from using the railway service. Governments behave as if they were
subservient to the agitators, as if there was no government at all. If
these reports are correct, you have to explain," the bench told
Haryana's additional advocate general, Manjeet Singh.

"Unless the situation improves, we have to take very drastic steps.
Court cannot tolerate this persistent attitude of any community for
destroying the absolute right of life of other communities. Please
mark our words," the bench said.

Villagers had been protesting against the arrest of 98 members of
their community for allegedly killing 70-year-old Tara Chand and his
teenaged daughter Suman in the village on April 21 last year.

The protestors demanded a fresh probe into the dalit killings. Most of
those on the road belonged to the pre-dominant Jat community. They had
been sitting on railway tracks at Julani village near Jind railway
station since January 15, disrupting railway traffic on the
Jind-Jakhal section of the Delhi-Ferozepur route.

The stir was called off on January 26 following Haryana Chief
Minister's assurance to look into their demands.The trail against the
accused of Mirchpur killings is pending before a Delhi court. All the
accused are lodged in Tihar jail.


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[ZESTCaste] Dalits stage protest

 

http://news.oneindia.in/2011/01/31/dalitsstageprotest-aid0126.html

January 31, 2011 » India

Dalits stage protest
Monday, January 31, 2011, 23:00 [IST]

Alwar, Jan 31 (PTI) Hundreds of Dalits today staged ademonstration
demanding a judicial probe into what they saidransacking of their
houses a few days ago.

A memorandum seeking an impartial probe into theincident was handed
over to concerned authorities, a Dalitleader said.

The Dalits alleged those who had ransacked theirhouses in Husainpur
village had the protection of ruling partyleaders.

Besides compensation to affected families, theydemanded stern action
against police and district officers fortheir "inaction".

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[ZESTCaste] Dalit girl raped by three, sold for Rs 50,000

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Dalit-girl-raped-by-three-sold-for-Rs-50000/articleshow/7400509.cms

Dalit girl raped by three, sold for Rs 50,000
TNN, Feb 1, 2011, 01.57am IST

AHMEDABAD: A 24-year-old girl was abducted and raped by a group of
three persons in Amraiwadi. She was then sold for Rs 50,000 to a
prospective groom in a village of Amreli. The girl was abandoned by
her husband and in-laws last week when they realised that she was not
from the same caste.

The victim was sent for medical examination after she filed a
complaint with the Amraiwadi police on Monday. The Dalit girl, a
resident of Baliyanagar in Amraiwadi, used to work as a skilled
labourer at Bharti Estate near Rabari Colony.

As per her complaint, she was abducted by a co-worker Manu Vankar who
took her to an isolated spot in Bhuriyo Rabari's autorickshaw. There
she was raped by Vankar. Later, one Lagha Bharwad also violated her
modesty.

According to police, the gang held her captive for more than six
months at different places in Ahmedabad district and elsewhere where
she was repeatedly raped by Vankar. Then they took her to several
villages to pass her off as a prospective bride. They finally struck a
deal at Jambuda village in Amreli district where they got Rs 50,000
and forced her to marry Gabhru Rabari.

"Vankar had told Gabhru that the girl was an orphan and has been in
their care since many years," said M S Sindha, inspector of Amraiwadi
police station.

Soon after the marriage in November, 2010, Gabhru noticed his wife's
behaviour suspicious and when he confronted her, the girl told him her
tale of woes. Furious, Gabhru tried to hunt down the trio who had
duped him but in vain. He then left her near her residence in
Amraiwadi last week. The girl later lodged a complaint with Amraiwadi
police.

"We have sent the victim to Civil Hospital for clinical examination.
The case will subsequently be transferred to the city's SC/ST cell for
further investigation," said Sindha.

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[ZESTCaste] Mirchpur violence: SC slams Haryana Govt

 

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/mirchpur-violence-sc-slams-haryana-govt/142022-3.html

Mirchpur violence: SC slams Haryana Govt
IANS
Posted on Jan 31, 2011 at 08:50pm IST

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday pulled up the Haryana
government for failing to clear an 11-day-long blockade of the
national highway by the Jat community protesting the arrests of its
members allegedly involved in the Mirchpur village attack on Dalits.

The apex court bench of Justice GS Singhvi and Justice AK Ganguly told
the government that "the blockade of the national highway cannot be
tolerated".

The court said that the common man had the right to travel and the
highway could not be obstructed by anyone in the course of an
agitation.

Mirchpur violence: SC slams Haryana Govt

The judges said that it could not be a mute witness to a situation
where the rule of law was subverted by muscle power.

The Jat agitators have been protesting against the arrest of their 98
people allegedly involved in attack on the Dalits of Mirchpur village
of Hisar district April 21, 2010. The blockade was ordered by the
mahapanchayat of 12 khaps (caste councils).

A 70-year-old man and his 18-year-old physically-challenged daughter
were killed in the arson attack on a Dalit locality in Mirchpur
village, about 300 km from Chandigarh.

The court said it could not be a mute spectator to the way people were
being put to trouble by the agitators. The court condemned the strong
arm tactics being used by the members of the dominant caste to
frustrate action against them.

The court said that the right to life of another community could not
be put violated by members of the dominant community.

The judges also took note of the recent agitation by the Gujjar
community of Rajasthan which disrupted rail and road traffic for days
together, thereby causing hardship to people.

The trial in Mirchpur anti-Dalit violence case was shifted to a court
in Delhi's Rohini district court complex after the apex court was told
that the witnesses were being threatened and the atmosphere outside
the trial court in Hisar was not conducive for a free and fair trial.

The matter was adjourned for two weeks.

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[ZESTCaste] Fwd: Caste of millions

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shiva Shankar <sshankar@cmi.ac.in>
Date: Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 11:48 AM
Subject: Caste of millions
To:

'... they will also encounter (in Guha's book) much less well-known
and equally distinguished figures, such as BR Ambedkar, the articulate
spokesman of formerly untouchable Hindus, or Dalits, and the main
architect of India's extraordinary constitution that in 1949 bestowed
equal rights upon all its citizens. ...'


'... In these chapters, French potently recreates the experiences of
many foreign visitors to India, who, preparing themselves for a
vibrant democracy, are disconcerted to encounter its hollowed-out
forms: rampant corruption, widespread human rights abuses,
degradations of class and caste, and the hatred laced with fear of the
very affluent for the very poor. ...'


Caste of millions

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/2ecabe4a-24e3-11e0-895d-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss#axzz1BjBObGzP

By Pankaj Mishra

Published: January 21 2011 22:03

Makers of Modern India, by Ramachandra Guha, Harvard University Press,
RRP£25.95, 512 pages

The Rediscovery of India, by Meghnad Desai, Bloomsbury, RRP£25, 512 pages

India: A Portrait, by Patrick French, Allen Lane, RRP£25, 448 pages

India is the "most interesting country in the world". Or so the Indian
writer Ramachandra Guha asserts in the prologue to his new book Makers
of Modern India. You might think Guha would say that: he has written
several books on the subject, including India After Gandhi (2007), a
history of postcolonial India. But he may be on to something. India is
one of the world's oldest continuous civilisations; its diverse
communities live in several centuries at once, generating multiple and
contradictory narratives. Where else can you find a naked Hindu
mendicant pulling a truck with his penis and suave tycoons buying
blue-chip companies in the US and Europe, even as militant communists
occupy and administer large parts of the country?

Strangely, the notion of India that is increasingly commonplace in the
west, which these three books address in different ways, floats well
above the singularities, oddities and contrasts that make the country
so interesting. According to the west, India is a vibrantly democratic
country full of confident tycoons, adventurous entrepreneurs and
friendly English speakers, which will counterbalance vaguely menacing
China and assist the economic recovery of the west.

For decades, India was seen in the west as poor and spiritual.
Suddenly, it appears to be increasingly rich and materialistic. This
India 2.0 version is animated, of course, by the demands of the
moment, by politicians as well as businessmen desperately looking
eastward for expanding markets. Needless to say, it ignores the
particularities of India's political and economic reconstruction: for
instance, the radical Indian experiment with electoral democracy in a
poor and irrepressibly diverse country.

Only multiethnic and newly democratic Indonesia has come close in
recent years to matching India's complex conflicts and tensions. Guha
enumerates no fewer than five revolutions – urban, industrial,
national, democratic, social – occurring simultaneously in the country
today. His new book also attempts to locate the intellectual sources
of these transformations. Following up on India After Gandhi, Makers
of Modern India anthologises the speeches and writings of 19
influential thinker-activists who, according to Guha, had a "defining
impact on the formation and evolution of the Indian Republic".

Readers in the west will find some familiar personalities here,
including Gandhi himself, Jawaharlal Nehru, India's secular and
liberal-minded first prime minister, and Rabindranath Tagore, the
Bengali poet and Nobel laureate. But they will also encounter much
less well-known and equally distinguished figures, such as BR
Ambedkar, the articulate spokesman of formerly untouchable Hindus, or
Dalits, and the main architect of India's extraordinary constitution
that in 1949 bestowed equal rights upon all its citizens.

As an anthology of Indian political debates, Makers of Modern India
makes for instructive reading. But Guha's commentary doesn't quite
clarify just how the luminaries included in his book made modern
India. These fiercely iconoclastic figures are not easily herded into
an official intellectual pantheon of the Indian Republic; many of them
might recoil from their supposed handiwork. In any case, India as we
know it today is not so much the imperfectly realised dream of its
supposed founding fathers as a contingent product of history, which
stumbled into existence in 1947 burdened by the original sin of
partition.

It was British imperialists who gave continent-sized India its
political cohesiveness and built most of its administrative
structures; their hasty departure and the bloody creation of Pakistan
determined postcolonial India's trajectory more enduringly than the
ideals of Gandhi or Nehru, which are derided, if not forgotten, in
India today. Gandhi's preoccupation with rural economies and
grassroots social reform was ignored by his own disciple Nehru, who
invested disproportionately in heavy industries and top-down
modernisation.

Other noble dreams of collective emancipation and glory, too, were
compromised by the many exigencies of postcolonial nation-building.
The colonial state, with its aloof bureaucracy and repressive
apparatus, was retained, and radical new institutions of universal
adult franchise and social welfare uneasily grafted on to it. Not
surprisingly, torture and extrajudicial execution remain as
commonplace a feature of contemporary India as free and largely fair
elections, and the red-taped state still struggles to provide
effective education and healthcare.

The hierarchies underpinning India's older cruelties of caste and
gender have also survived the egalitarian proclamations of the
constitution; universal franchise has yet to lead to a civil rights
revolution. Dalits are still being lynched and raped by upper-caste
feudal lords, and thousands of women burnt to death for bringing
insufficient dowries, even as Dalit and female politicians move into
the highest offices in the land. Indeed, Ambedkar's battle against the
inequities of the caste system has had the strangest afterlife.

Beneficiaries of en bloc voting by previously subordinate groups, a
generation of low-caste leaders has now enjoyed political power in
India's most populous provinces. Accused of corruption and
incompetence, they have ended up advancing group claims and identities
rather than individual rights for all. The most conspicuous of the new
profiteers of caste is Mayawati, the Dalit chief minister of Uttar
Pradesh's 180m citizens. She has amassed a great personal fortune; her
penchant for solitaire diamonds and huge statues of herself has
further undermined the state's investment-starved economy.

Why has democracy enshrined rather than effaced caste divisions in
Indian society? Meghnad Desai, Labour peer and professor emeritus at
the London School of Economics, argues in his new book The Rediscovery
of India, an opinionated but always interesting history, that India is
a "modernised conservative society" rather than the "modernist
rational one" of Nehru's dream. If liberal democracy based on the
rights of the individual has shallow roots in India, this is at least
partly due, Desai claims, to Nehru's post-partition all-consuming
obsession with India's national unity and territorial integrity.

Desai grew up in post-1947 India; he has an instinctive understanding
of the imperatives of postcolonial consolidation that greatly
constricted decision-making in the early years of the Indian republic.
Deploring the isolationist economic policies of Nehru, he is,
nevertheless, alert to the political context in which they were
formulated. He describes persuasively how the proud Indian resolve to
create a self-sufficient industrial economy turned into an unhealthy
aversion to international trade.

Desai is aware, too, of the political turmoil unleashed by India's now
globalised economy: how by distributing its benefits narrowly, it
expands the population of the disenchanted and the frustrated, often
making them vulnerable to populist politicians. He describes how the
corporate group Tata was forced to relocate its original factory for
Nano cars by a politician (all set now to be the next chief minister
of West Bengal) cannily exploiting the fear and despair of farmers,
who could not see an "alternative to cultivation during their
lifetime".

Old narratives about India are defunct, Desai argues. But then the new
ones, especially those circulating in the west, often obscure more
than they reveal. Never mind that more desperately poor people – 421m
– live in India today than all of sub-Saharan Africa, and that nearly
half of the country's children suffer from malnourishment. The new
western accounts of India speak of the tycoons of Bangalore and
Mumbai; they hail an India rising, finally, to the consumer capitalism
that is apparently the summit of human civilisation, if not the
terminus of history.

Patrick French's book India: A Portrait, subtitled The Intimate
Biography of 1.2bn People, is the most eloquent restatement yet of
this thesis. It applauds Indian democracy – Mayawati comes in for
special mention – but the book's true heroes are the Indian
entrepreneurs who liberated themselves from Nehru's old protectionist
economy and who now seem ready to emancipate the rest of India as
well.

Interviewing these businessmen, French is strikingly able to
individualise them, illuminating large sociopolitical shifts in the
process. Still, French, an acclaimed literary biographer of Francis
Younghusband and VS Naipaul, is never more engaging than when he
ventures into ordinary Indian lives.

Shocked by a press report about a menial labourer called Venkatesh,
who had been chained to his place of work, he travels to south India
to interview him. He is appalled by the living conditions of workers
constructing a fancy condominium in Bangalore. A visit to Kashmir
brings him face-to-face with the everyday brutality of India's
military occupation of the valley. In these chapters, French potently
recreates the experiences of many foreign visitors to India, who,
preparing themselves for a vibrant democracy, are disconcerted to
encounter its hollowed-out forms: rampant corruption, widespread human
rights abuses, degradations of class and caste, and the hatred laced
with fear of the very affluent for the very poor.

More reportage of this kind would have anchored India: A Portrait,
which flits distractingly between journalism, history, analysis, bold
prophecy and large generalisations. Unfortified by first-hand
experience, French too often succumbs to the overworked templates of
foreign journalists in India. Corruption in India, he concludes
quaintly, is caused by "poverty and social imbalance". But the recent
Commonwealth Games fiasco and subsequent scandals reveal how some of
India's most prominent businessmen, politicians, bureaucrats and
journalists together plunder such national resources as land, oil and
gas, and mines.

Though surprised by the resurgence of militant communists today in a
vast swathe of central India, French foregoes any close examination of
the scramble for precious commodities or of the accelerated
dispossession, in recent years, of forest-dwelling tribal peoples and
farmers alike. Nearly 800m Indians still depend on agriculture for a
living. Yet the quiet catastrophe in rural areas – the poisoning of
cultivable land, spiralling debt, and the suicides of tens of
thousands of farmers in recent years – is absent from India: A
Portrait.

French does talk at length to a man with a farming background but the
latter turns out to be an employee at a California-style vineyard. The
member of a poor tribal community, he leads French into upbeat
speculations about the "democratisation of wine drinking" in India.
But the collapse of water tables is a more pressing concern for
hundreds of millions of Indians in rural areas, who are very far from
imitating the consumption patterns of middle-class Europeans and
Americans. The task of even adequately educating India's large and
growing youth population is daunting enough, not to mention creating
labour-intensive jobs in manufacturing and services and making urban
economic growth environmentally sustainable.

India: A Portrait generally avoids these larger challenges confronting
India today. Like many recent accounts of the country, it is suffused
with the mystical faith that a small but "dynamic" Indian minority of
producers and consumers will somehow accomplish social as well as
economic change. French hails shampoo sold in cheaply priced sachets
as a "a major feat of democratisation", since previously poor people
can "now aspire to the pleasure of having shiny hair and softer skin".

But cheap beauty aids are unlikely to compensate India's impoverished
for a heavily privatised healthcare system that, according to a new
report in medical journal The Lancet, pushes 39m Indians below the
poverty line each year. The unilinear discourse about the
boisterousness of Indian markets and democracy – one that excites
audiences at Davos and Aspen – cannot easily accommodate any
potentially complicating facts.

Thus, French's admiring account of Mayawati's rise skips over the
allegations of corruption, persecution of other low-caste groups and
her manic self-love. One misses, too, in India: A Portrait,
urban-oriented though it is, any quickening sense of India's popular
middle-class cultures.

This is a pity. For there is an India that is indeed rising, reflected
most gaudily by billionaire businessman Mukesh Ambani's new 27-storey
home in Mumbai as well as Mayawati's statues of herself; these are
aspiring as well as already privileged new classes with inordinate
cravings for wealth and fame, and very fragile self-esteem. Some of
the best literary writing about India in recent years – Suketu Mehta's
Maximum City, Aravind Adiga's Man Booker-winning The White Tiger – has
plunged us into this teeming universe of Gatsbys and Babbitts with
euphoric desires, resentments and fears. French's book heralds without
really describing India's own jazz age – the particular exuberance,
tawdriness, cruelty, and melancholy that continue to make India, if
not quite how its "makers" saw it or its new western admirers predict,
the most interesting country in the world.

Pankaj Mishra is author of 'Temptations of the West: How to be Modern
in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tibet and Beyond' (Picador)


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[ZESTCaste] Rajiv Malhotra book launch: 6 Provocations in Breaking India - Dravidian Identity constructed, exploited and politicized

 

 
FYI -

--- On Mon, 1/31/11, Rajiv Malhotra <rajivmalhotra2011@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Rajiv Malhotra <rajivmalhotra2011@gmail.com>
Subject: Invitation: Delhi book discussion and launch on Feb 9, 2011.
To: khalidazam@yahoo.com
Date: Monday, January 31, 2011, 5:26 PM

Hello,
 
This email has two purposes. First, I am updating my contact list.  If you wish to continue receiving notifications from me, you must click the "Confirm to all lists" link at the bottom of this message.
 
Secondly, you are invited to an event which will be held on February 9th, 2011, where a strong line up of eminent public intellectuals from across the political spectrum will discuss "Breaking India," the title on my new book. The chief guest will be Ram Jethmalani, and the other speakers will be B. Raman, S. Gurumurthy, Vice Admiral (retd.) Raman Puri, Upendra Baxi, and myself.  The web site www.BreakingIndia.com has more information about the book. A brief synopsis, titled, "Six Provocations in 'Breaking India'" is given below after the invitation, to highlight the issues and controversies it hopes to provoke.

You are invited to the event which will be held on February 9th, 2011. Tea will be served at 4:30pm, and the discussion/launch will be from 5pm to 7pm. There will be tea and a light meal afterward. The venue will be: Vivekananda International Foundation, 3 San Martin Marg, Chanyakyapuri, New Delhi. Details of the speakers and program can be found on the below invitation. I look forward to seeing you at what promises to be a lively discussion.


=======================

SIX PROVOCATIONS IN "BREAKING INDIA"
1.     DRAVIDIAN IDENTITY CONSTRUCTED, EXPLOITED & POLITICIZED: The fabrication of South Indian history is being carried out on an immense scale with the explicit goal of constructing a Dravidian identity that is distinct from that of the rest of India.  From the 1830s onwards, this endeavor's key milestones have claimed that south India: is linguistically separate from the rest of India; has an un-Indian culture, aesthetics and literature; has a history disconnected from India's; is racially distinct; is religiously distinct; and, consequently, is a separate nation. Tamil classical literature that predates the 19th century reveals no such identity conflicts especially with "alien" peoples of the north, nor does it reveal any sense of victimhood or any view of Westerners or Christians as "liberators." This identity engineering was begun by British colonial and missionary scholars, picked up by politically ambitious south Indians with British backing, and subsequently assumed a life of its own. Even then it was largely a secular movement for political power (albeit with a substratum of racist rhetoric). In recent decades, however, a vast network of groups based in the West has co-opted this movement and is attempting to transform Tamil identity into the Dravidian Christianity movement premised on a fabricated racial-religious history. This rewriting of history has necessitated a range of archeological falsities and even epigraphic hoaxes, blatantly contradicting scientific evidence. Similar interventions by some of the same global forces have resulted in genocides and civil wars in Sri Lanka, Rwanda and other places. If unchallenged these movements could produce horrific outcomes in South India.
2.     LINKING OF DRAVIDIAN & DALIT IDENTITIES: India has its own share of social injustices that need to be continually addressed and resolved. Caste identities have been used to discriminate against others, but these identities were not always crystallized and ossified as they are today, nor were they against a specific religion per se. Caste identity faultlines became invigorated and politicized through the British Censuses of India, and later intensified in independent India by vote bank politics. A dangerous anti-national grand narrative emerged based on claims of a racial Dalit identity and victimhood. But Dalit communities are not monolithic and have diverse local histories and social dynamics. There are several inconsistencies and errors in these caste classifications: not all Dalit communities are equivalent socially and economically, nor are they static or always subordinate to others.  While Dravidian and Dalit identities were constructed separately, there is a strategy at work to link them in order to denigrate and demonize Indian classical traditions (including spiritual texts and the identities based on these) as a common enemy. This in turn, has been mapped on to an Afro-Dalit narrative which claims that Dalits are racially related to Africans and all other Indians are "whites." Thus, Indian civilization itself is demonized as anti-humanistic and oppressive. This has become the playground of major foreign players, both from the evangelical right and from the academic left. It has opened huge career opportunities for an assortment of middlemen including NGOs, intellectuals and "champions of the oppressed." While the need for relief and structural change is immense, the shortsighted selfish politics is often empowering the movements' leaders more than the people in whose name the power is being accumulated. The "solutions" could exacerbate the problems.
3.     FOREIGN NEXUS EXPLOITS INDIA'S FAULTLINES: An entity remains intact as long as the centripetal forces (those bringing its parts together) are stronger than its centrifugal forces (those pulling it apart). This study of a variety of organizations in USA and Europe demonstrates certain dangerous initiatives that could contribute to the breaking up of Indian civilization's cohesiveness and unity using various pretexts and programs. The institutions involved include certain Western government agencies, churches, think tanks, academics, and private foundations across the political spectrum. Even the fierce fight between Christians and Leftists within the West, and the clash between Islam and Christianity in various places, have been set aside in order to attack India's unity. Numerous intellectual paradigms, such as postmodernist critiques of "nation," originating from the West's own cultural and historical experiences are universalized, imported and superimposed onto India. These ill-fitting paradigms take center stage in Indian intellectual circles and many guilt-ridden Indian elites have joined this enterprise, seeing it as "progressive" and a respectable path for career opportunities. The book does not predict the outcomes but simply shows that such trends are accelerating and do take considerable national resources to counteract.  If ignored, these identity divisions can evolve into violent secessionism.
4.     RELIGION'S ROLE IN THE COMPETITION FOR SOFT POWER: Global competition among collective identities is intensifying, even as the "flat world" of meritocracy seems to enhance individual mobility based on personal competence. But the opportunities and clout of individuals in a global world relies enormously on the cultural capital and standing of the groups from which they emerge and are anchored to. As goes India and Indian culture (of which Hinduism is a major component), so will go the fate of Indians everywhere.  Hence, the role of soft power becomes even more important than ever before. Religions and cultures are a key component of such soft power. Christian and Islamic civilizations are investing heavily in boosting their respective soft power, for both internal cohesiveness and external influence. Moreover, undermining the soft power of rivals is clearly seen as a strategic weapon in the modern kurukshetra.
5.     INTERROGATING THE TERM "MINORITY": The book raises the question: Who is a "minority" in the present global context? A community may be numerically small relative to the local population, but globally it may in fact be part of the majority that is powerful, assertive and well-funded. Given that India is experiencing a growing influx of global funding, political lobbying, legal action and flow of ideologies, what criteria should we use to classify a group as a "minority"? Should certain groups, now counted as minorities, be reclassified given their enormous worldwide clout, power and resources? If the "minority" concerned has actually merged into an extra-territorial power through ideology (like Maoists) or theology (like many churches and madrassas), through infrastructure investment (like buying large amounts of land, buildings, setting up training centers, etc.), through digital integration and internal governance, then do they not become a powerful tool of intervention representing a larger global force rather than being simply a "minority" in India. Certainly, one would not consider a local franchise of McDonalds in India to be a minor enterprise just because it may employ only a handful of employees with modest revenues locally. It is its global size, presence and clout that are counted and that determine the rules, restrictions and disclosure requirements to which it must adhere. Similarly, nation-states' presence in the form of consulates is also regulated. But why are foreign religious MNCs exempted from similar requirements of transparency and supervision? (For example: Bishops are appointed by the Vatican, funded by it, and given management doctrine to implement by the Vatican, and yet are not regulated on par with diplomats in consulates representing foreign sovereign states.) Indian security agencies do monitor Chinese influences and interventions into Buddhist monasteries in the northern mountain belt, because such interventions can compromise Indian sovereignty and soft power while boosting China's clout. Should the same supervision also apply to Christian groups operating under the direction and control of their western headquarters and Islamic organizations funded and/or ideologically influenced by their respective foreign headquarters? Ultimately, the book raises the most pertinent challenge: What should India do to improve and deliver social justice in order to secure its minorities and wean them away from global nexuses that are often anti-Indian?
6.     CONTROLLING THE DISCOURSE ON INDIA: The book shows how the discourse on India at various levels is being increasingly controlled by the institutions in the West which in turn serve its geopolitical ambitions. So, why has India failed to create its own institutions that are the equivalent of the Ford Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, etc.? Why are there no Indian university based International Relations programs with deep-rooted links to the External Affairs Ministry, RAW, and various cultural, historical and ideological think tanks? Why are the most prestigious journals, university degrees and conferences on India Studies, in sharp contrast to the way China Studies worldwide is under the control of Chinese dominated discourse, based in the West and mostly under the control of western institutions?
 
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[ZESTCaste] Dalits, upper castes face-off on temple entry

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Tension-in-TN-village-over-temple-entry/744479

Dalits, upper castes face-off on temple entry

Express News Service Posted online: Tue Feb 01 2011, 11:00 hrs
Chennai : Uthapuram, a nondescript village near Madurai that became
infamous over an 'untouchability wall', is in news again — this time
following tension between Dalits and upper caste Hindus over a temple
where the backward community is denied entry.

The Muthalamman temple, built and maintained by upper caste Hindus,
has always been out of bounds for the Dalits, and has been the cause
of skirmishes between the two communities.

A portion of the wall was demolished following protests by the Dalits
led by the Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front (TNUEF), a
CPM-backed outfit, sometime back.

The Dalits had then demanded that the temple be thrown open to
everybody. But the community that owned the temple had opposed the
suggestion.

Taking up the cause of the Dalits again, the TNUEF and the CPM have
demanded that the temple doors should be thrown open to the backward
castes and also announced a temple-entry agitation on Monday.

After the Marxists took up the issue, the upper castes formed another
group to 'protect' the temple, leading to tension in the area.

The district collector issued prohibitory orders in Uthapuram village
and the surrounding areas. A large contingent of police was deployed
to prevent any untoward incident.

Despite warnings and requests from the district administration, the
party cadres, local Dalits and activists on Monday tried to forcefully
enter the temple.

Hundreds of people led by party MLA K Mahendran tried to enter the
temple premises but were prevented by the police, resulting in a
scuffle. Over a hundred people were arrested.


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[ZESTCaste] Ambedkar villages yet to light up with solar power

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/varanasi/Ambedkar-villages-yet-to-light-up-with-solar-power/articleshow/7399833.cms

Ambedkar villages yet to light up with solar power
Binay Singh, TNN, Feb 1, 2011, 10.58am IST

VARANASI: While chief minister Mayawati is likely to begin inspection
of development works in various districts in the first week of
February, not a single unit of LED (light-emitting diode) system
powered by solar energy has been installed so far in any of the
Ambedkar villages in Varanasi and Chandauli districts.

The New and renewable Energy Development Agency (NEDA) has been given
the task to install 77 units of solar powered LED street lamps in 14
selected Ambedkar villages of Varanasi and 43 units in seven villages
of Chandauli district. The reason for the delay in installing the
solar powered street light units, as pointed out by the NEDA
officials, is mainly due to the delay in supply of the LED systems.
"We expect that the LED units would be supplied in the next few days
and we would installed them immediately at the selected villages,"
Rajmani Pandey, senior NEDA official at Varanasi, told TOI on Monday.

Efforts were being made to install the LED units in Ambedkar villages
before the inspection visit of the chief minister, confided NEDA
sources and informed the work would be completed as per the schedule
of the chief minister. The LED solar street light would be installed
at SC/ST-dominated clusters of Ambedkar villages identified in 1995-96
and 1997-98. According to NEDA records, in Varanasi district, the
streets of 14 such SC clusters would be electrified with solar energy
in different development blocks including Chiraigaon (4), Harahua (4),
Araziline (1), Cholapur (3), Baragaon (1) and Sevapuri (1). Similarly
in Chandauli district, seven villages in Barhani (2), Chandauli (2)
Chahania (1), Shahabganj (1) and Naugarh (1) blocks will be covered
under this project. The work in these villages should be completed in
the current financial year. The NEDA officials are hopeful that the
work will be completed in the stipulated time.

However, the solar energy is already being utilised in various
government and private establishments in the district. According to
NEDA authorities, solar energy is being utilised for heating about
40,000 litres of water per day at different places in the district.
The solar water heating systems have been installed on the campus of
the Banaras Hindu University ( BHU), Ramakrishna Mission and many
hospitals in the city. Besides, solar street light facility is
available in remote Maoist-affected areas of Chandauli district.
Around 200 households in four villages of Ramchandipur, Gobaraha,
Rampur Dhab and Mokalpur have been electrified with solar energy.

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